Bitch – the word

Seems like an appropriate image for the post. I haven’t seen the movie.

I’ve never been the biggest fan of this inglorious term, but I’m an even lesser fan of when the fairer sex uses it to refer to their own kind.

I don’t know the etymology of this base word as it is used to refer to humans – whether it was perhaps first used by women to spite other women – but to me it sounds dirtier when women call each other bitch. Probably from the way I grew up and heard the term used, when it is used that way I feel like it’s emasculating the term. It makes me think there’s trouble in the sisterhood of modern women, when women disrespect other women. But then maybe that’s my perception because I’m a man. Maybe to women it feels like something similar when men disrespect each other with much less eloquent words.

When a man calls a woman bitch these days they don’t even flinch, and when women say it to each other they brush it off like it’s nothing. Maybe I take the term too seriously, because I never considered it something to be thrown around at the slightest provocation.

Maybe it’s good. With frequent use the word loses its edge and might even fade out of use. It’s just such an…ugly and sharp-sounding word; doesn’t sound good to the ear, of the speaker or the listener.